Jobless engineering graduates rising in Madhya Pradesh, says minister

The number of jobless engineering graduates is growing in Madhya Pradesh as the quality of education in private-run colleges was declining, said minister of state for technical education Deepak Joshi in the state assembly on Thursday in a written reply to a question from BJP member Yashpal Singh Sisodia.

New Delhi, India - July 20, 2016: A fresh session commenced at the Delhi University colleges in the North Campus after the completion of the admission processes in New Delhi, India, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. (Photo by Saumya Khandelwal/ Hindustan Times)(Saumya Khandelwal/HT PHOTO)

The number of jobless engineering graduates is growing in Madhya Pradesh as the quality of education in private-run colleges was declining, said minister of state for technical education Deepak Joshi in the state assembly on Thursday in a written reply to a question from BJP member Yashpal Singh Sisodia.

The minister in reply to the legislator’s question if the number of jobless engineers grew in the last five years and if the quality of engineering graduates from private-run colleges was not recognized at the national level that has resulted in joblessness among youngsters, attributed the phenomena to “the mushrooming number of new engineering colleges” in the last five years.

The mushrooming of science and engineering colleges in India over the last couple of decades has led to decline of standard and churning out of graduates who cannot find jobs, a 2015 report by Aspiring Minds National Employability said.

The report, which was based on a study of more than 1,50,000 engineering students who graduated in 2015 from more than 650 colleges, said that 80% of graduates were unemployable.

India has seen an explosive growth in the number of colleges that offer under graduate and post graduate programmes in science and engineering, but the country has witnessed a huge decline in the standards of education to the point that majority of graduates in science and engineering are unemployable, the report said.

Joshi in his reply, said that the number of students who graduated from Indore and Ujjain divisions in 2014-15 and 2015-16 was more than 14,000, out of whom only 53% could get jobs.

As many as 3,545 engineering graduates got jobs in 2014-15, while the number of employed students grew to 3,988 in 2015-16 in Indore and Ujjain divisions.

As far as placement of the engineering graduates institute wise is concerned, graduates of SGSITS in Indore topped the list of the two divisions with 850 students getting jobs in 2015 and 1,012 in 2016.

In reply to Sisodia’s question if any committee was constituted to assess the problem of joblessness and if any action taken to improve the quality of education, he said a circular dated May 16, 2016 was issued by the department to ensure quality of education but no committee was constituted.